Pandora Imposes Monthly Limit for Mobile Listening

Pandora announced that it will limit the amount of time its customers can listen to music for free on mobile devices. Under the new policy, customers can stream up to 40 hours of music per month. Users who exceed the 40-hour limit will need to pay 99 cents to listen to music for the remainder of that month. According to Pandora, the policy will affect less than 4% of its user base, as the vast majority stream fewer than 20 hours of music per month. Pandora blamed the policy change on the rising rate of royalties that it must pay to music labels to offer the music.

Pandora stated a long time ago, years ago in fact, that they would impose a limit on all devices of 40 hours per month. The only way around it would be to subscribe to the Pandora One account, which would allow unlimited listening as well as ad-free listening.

Maybe I misunderstood all that years ago but to me, I always kept my listening well under 40 hours when I have better options like Slacker (a wider selection of music, and no limits) and TuneInRadio.